Google is shutting down Google Plus following massive data exposure

Google finally gives the final thrust to Google+, will close forever in August 2019, but the reasons are a search for positive image washing for not revealing a hack to the social network in 2015.

Google+ (Google Plus), the zombie of social networks, the failed project to compete against Facebook and Twitter at the same time, will finally close as part of the company’s efforts to improve several aspects of privacy and security once it has been uncovered that it was hacked into 2015 and decided not to notify those affected.

Internally they call it Project Strobe although it is a nice name to communicate something horrible: data of half a million people were exposed, including full name, emails, date of birth, profile photos, places where they have lived, occupation and status of the relationship. Once they realized it, they hid it.

Like Facebook when the Cambridge Analytica scandal was uncovered, Google aims to significantly improve the control that people have over their privacy and the data they give to third-party applications. But the most relevant, probably, is that they will end the problem by cutting off the head, figuratively, of the zombie: they will definitely close Google+.

In the announcement they have published a very relevant data that shows the dying state of the social network, a disconcerting fact considering the size of Google and the resources that could be able to devote to lift the project: 90% of user sessions in Google+ They last less than five seconds.

Likewise, they assure that they understand the difficulty behind creating a product as a social network that responds to the expectations of consumers. During the next 10 months, the social network will gradually be phased out, with the aim of completely disappearing in August 2019.

T he company’s efforts, according to the statement, is to transfer part of the value of Google+ to companies, the goal is to build a product that functions as a “corporate private social network”. On this front Google has been more successful. Google Wave never worked, but part of the product became Google Docs, which is extremely popular.

Google+ is going without grief or glory , a product that has never been understood, as is usually the modus operandi of Google, we put it to a few tablespoons (if you had Gmail, you had Google+, if you had a “normal” account of Google, you had a Google+ account, like it or not), but you never had traction.